how long does it take in residency before you feel you can do it by yourself?

[ronaldo23]

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how long is it in residency until you are feeling confident to do the specialty you are training for by yourself, MORE OR LESS without any assistance from attendings?

in general, or in the following fields if it varies...


and what is it like at the beginning? do you feel like you know nothing and need help constantly?

Anesthesiology Dermatology Diagnostic Radiology Emergency Medicine Family Practice General Surgery Internal Medicine Neurology Neurosurgery Ob/Gyn Ophthalmology Orthopaedic Surgery Otolaryngology Pathology Pediatrics Physical Medicine Plastic Surgery Psychiatry

 

[ronaldo23]

how long is it in residency until you are feeling confident to do the specialty you are training for by yourself, MORE OR LESS without any assistance from attendings?

in general, or in the following fields if it varies...


and what is it like at the beginning? do you feel like you know nothing and need help constantly?

Anesthesiology Dermatology Diagnostic Radiology Emergency Medicine Family Practice General Surgery Internal Medicine Neurology Neurosurgery Ob/Gyn Ophthalmology Orthopaedic Surgery Otolaryngology Pathology Pediatrics Physical Medicine Plastic Surgery Psychiatry

 

[doctorperez]

Unfortunately, you probably won't get much replies at the pre-md forum.

Nonetheless, it is probably something along the lines of: see 1, do 1, teach 1.

 

[CubaLibre]

Unfortunately, you probably won't get much replies at the pre-md forum.

Nonetheless, it is probably something along the lines of: see 1, do 1, teach 1.

scary

 

[Museless]

I'm sure the answer varies for everyone, but for me, it's about a year and a half into it that I began to feel confident. By that point, you've seen common things and managed them successfully many times, and have built an innate, thorough approach to each case that allows you to approach more difficult things in a logical, step-wise fashion.

Rest assured, you'll get there. Trust the system - it's been graduating 18,000 new doctors a year, every year, longer than we've been alive.

 

[yaah]

Merging threads.

 

[ronaldo23]

anyone from specific fields care to comment?

 

[colbgw02]

well, i'm a radiology resident, so the answer is easy - 6 months.

that was the amount of training i was required to have before i could take in-house call without upper-level or attending back-up.

fwiw, that rule has changed, and from now on residents will be required to have a full year of training before taking call. technically, you're not even supposed to provide preliminary reads to clinicians during this time (even during the day), but i don't think anybody really follows that.

 

[Winged Scapula]

I'm just starting to realize that there's no one around to ask if I'm doing it right.😛

Seriously, it depends on what you're asking about? If by "it" you mean doing a big case, it wasn't until fellowship for most of them that I developed some sense of confidence and even today, when faced with something a little more unusual (ie, previously radiated tissue), I'll ask my partner for help.

But if you are asking about taking call, placing central lines, putting in Foley catheters, etc. the answer varies wildly.

General surgery residents typically do not have the independence that other specialties do, so there may be a component of "learned helplessness".

 

[Ypo.]

I can't speak for anyone else, but the intern I'm currently working with seems to think she can do it all by herself. Except discharge summaries on patients she doesn't know. She generally lets me do those. (i promise as a resident I will let my students actually do something once in awhile).

 

[elwademd]

i'm an internal medicine resident (pgy-3, 9 weeks and 5 days to go!). i had an attending tell me last year (my pgy-2 year), that i pretty much knew all i'd need to know at that point. of course he trained in a day when you could go onto subspecialty after 2 years of internal medicine.

personally, i feel like i'm pretty much there at this point, but i pretty much have only 4 weeks of rotation left. this time last year, i feel like i still had a lot to learn. so, i guess i'd say somewhere between the end of 2nd year and the middle of 3rd year.

in the end, i think in any specialty, you still ask questions of your colleagues. now, what you do with that information is a different story! some attendings will ask questions of other services/attendings in order to solidify a position/consensus opinion, whereas others ask questions because they have no clue.

 

[Strength&Speed]

id say about 2 yrs for im. maybe a little longer.